Install Hermes

Time to actually put Hermes on your machine. The install is a single command. The tricky part is what happens right after, which we'll walk through step by step.

What you need

• A Linux machine, a Mac, or Windows with WSL2
• Git installed
• A shell you're comfortable with (bash or zsh)

That's it. The installer handles everything else: Python 3.11, Node.js, uv, ripgrep, ffmpeg. You don't need to install those separately.

Native Windows is not supported. If you're on Windows, install WSL2 first and run everything inside your WSL2 terminal.

Android is fine too

If you want Hermes on your phone, install Termux from F-Droid and run the same command there. The installer auto-detects Termux and takes a slightly different path under the hood. Nothing you need to worry about.

Run the installer

Open your terminal and paste this:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

It will take a few minutes. You'll see it download and set up Python, Node, and the Hermes codebase. Coffee, if you like.

When it finishes, reload your shell so your terminal can find the new hermes command:

source ~/.bashrc   # or source ~/.zshrc if you use zsh

Checkpoint — Type hermes version and hit enter. You should see a version number printed back. If you do, the install worked.

Common things that go wrong

hermes: command not found after install.

You forgot to reload your shell, or the installer couldn't update your PATH. Run source ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc). Still nothing? Check that ~/.local/bin is in your PATH:

echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n' | grep local

If it's missing, add it:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Install script fails partway.

The most common cause is a slow or blocked network. Re-run the script — it's safe to run multiple times. If you keep hitting the same network error, run hermes doctor once the binary is installed; it'll tell you what's missing.

Weird issues on Termux.

Make sure you installed Termux from F-Droid, not the Google Play version. The Play Store version is ancient and doesn't work for this.

Three commands worth knowing right now

Before we move on, run these. They're how you'll check on Hermes's health later.

hermes version    # what version is installed
hermes doctor     # are the dependencies happy
hermes status     # is anything running

If hermes version prints something and hermes doctor doesn't complain, you're ready for the next step.

We haven't configured a model yet. That's on purpose. The next step is to poke around inside Hermes a bit without setting up anything, just to get a feel for what's in there.